Two-thirds of American Christian teenagers who regularly attend worship at a Protestant congregation for at least a year quit going for at least a year when they become young adults.
According to a report by LifeWay Research released last week, 66 percent of young adults who attended a Protestant church regularly for at least a year as a teenager dropped out for at least a year between the ages of 18 and 22.
The major reasons respondents gave included “moving to college” (34 percent), “church members seeming judgmental or hypocritical” (32 percent), “no longer feeling connected to people in their church” (29 percent), disagreement with their “church’s stance on political or social issues” (25 percent), and employment obligations (24 percent).
The report drew from data collected from a survey done September 15 – October 13 of last year of 2,002 respondents who attended Protestant churches, with a sampling error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points.